Say folks, if you've followed the AN Forums over the years you may be aware of how I occasionally refer to my hometown of Gary Indiana. Boy the stories I can tell!

My experiences growing up there, good and bad, were very influential and helped make me the person that I am. Ther strengths and weaknesses of my character were forged in that environment.

Well Gary is in the news today and I'd like to share the article with you...

..............

By Nick Bogert, NBC News contributor

GARY, Ind. -- No matter which direction Arthur Joe looks from his home, he sees abandoned properties and the blight they attract.

Next door is an empty house where “drugheads” – as Joe calls them – often set up camp. Behind is a duplex with trash visible through every broken window, and an alley clogged with refuse spilling from several abandoned lots.

Across the street is a vacant house owned by Joe’s landlord. Joe mows the grass there, vowing “we’re going to put it back together.”

For decades, Gary has been ravaged by economic decline and a long, deep housing bust, and putting it back together won’t be easy. Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson thinks letting vast swaths of her once-prosperous city, the birthplace of Michael Jackson, return to nature might be a solution.

“I’d like to see 100,000 folks in Gary. That’d be great,” the mayor said recently, walking through a neighborhood where empty lots and structures outnumber occupied homes. “We could probably do it in 35 square miles.” That’s 25 percent more residents on nearly 40 percent less land.